


we might be the outsiders

by UndergroundValentine



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Dark Side Powers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Powers, Gentle Kissing, Gray Jedi Rey (Star Wars), Hand Touch Porn, Mild Sexual Tension, Monster Rey, Moral Ambiguity, Naughty Thoughts, Pining, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Romantic Tension, Transfer Essence, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Tension, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:22:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22690144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UndergroundValentine/pseuds/UndergroundValentine
Summary: As though, in a blink, the cavern becomes light, and he sees the pale cream and gold shimmer of the creature, with a dark brown pattern across the head and hood.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	we might be the outsiders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radioactivesaltghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactivesaltghoul/gifts).



> Hey hi welcome to 2020, I anticipated this to be a short little thing and then it exploded into over 3k words, got submitted late, and involves what I think to be Jane-Austen-inspired levels of romantic pining. 
> 
> Maybe I'm just too proud of myself. Anyway, this was a friggin treat to write <3

He’s come to accept that their force bond yields a certain level of… unusual uniqueness to what they experience in their daily routines. Everything is as if tilted on its head, the perspective shifted out of alignment, though it is not _wrong_ (necessarily). Whether that sentiment comes from the low, gentle pulse of her presence, or his own weakness for her, he can’t be sure.

What is certain is that these nuances of their connection frequently prove to be nuisances. If it weren’t hard enough to quell the nervous stutter of his heart between his teeth when he swears he sees her racing around a corner, it’s another matter of willpower entirely to bite back the bile in his throat when it’s _her_ acid reflux he’s feeling. Not even two sturdy strikes to his chest are enough to shake the burn.

_What in kriff’s sake are they feeding you?_

He’s yet to receive a real response, though not long after the initial inquiry he found himself compelled—at no mystery—to open his mouth and let loose a low, guttural belch that would have made Chewbacca proud.

But that’s hardly the worst of it, and most days he wishes for an excuse to take him out of council with the First Order generals. Whatever personal motive or vendetta had once propelled him forward, now there’s nothing. Nothing of consequence or importance to those he’s surrounded by, and it becomes ever more apparent that he’s being found out. Hux gives him daggers enough, but more inquisitive and paranoid staring would all but bring the hammer down on the final nail before the man snaps.

Perhaps it had been with vain hope that he wanted Snoke to be right—if only a little. Watching her close the hatch of his father’s ship on him burrowed deeper than any nightmare or trauma. He wanted the bond to die there, knowing that it would be torturous to keep it after what he’d done. He wanted to take the closing door as the end.

It figures that it wasn’t.

If he’s meant to find penitence in her poor diet, the sunlight in her hair, and the way she curls around her pillow when she sleeps, then he will learn. He will meditate and devote himself to the lesson, and he will repent however he can from this. Because for all his hurt and his pride, for all that the Darkness has given him, he’s inexplicably drawn to her, to her energy, her determination, her unbridled passion to do and be more.

And the moment it’s gone— _she’s_ gone—he finds the silence to be deafening.

It was easy to write off the initial concern as a lack of focus, or even sleep deprivation. Nightmares were frequent, and though Snoke’s influence and whispers are largely absent, the wounds are old and deep. At best he can separate the words from his own thoughts, if nothing else to push himself another day forward, another day closer to—

To… what? To her? She’s meant to be his adversary, his rival, his enemy. Untrained but matching him, besting him at every curve and corner. In a matter of days, she went from merely resisting him to actively pushing back and challenging him. He had felt her in his mind the way he’d never felt another person—not even Snoke. She’d been there, so easily slipping between the cracks and fractures, until the loneliness that he’d felt in her faded away, the dark edges of a battered metal wall with marks scratched into broken, consistent little lines suddenly a powerful shield used against him.

But still… his soul is bound to hers. Whether it’s a destiny he is yet to realize, or the Force playing a cruel joke, he finds that neither answer will be gentle or kind.

Three days pass without so much as a blip from her. Patience has never been his strongest of virtues, but there’s something of panic that begins to brew in his core, and he tears himself away from the First Order. He tells no one directly, though there are enough Troopers and legates about to see him gathering a pack of supplies and departing in his ship for word to spread.

His hands curl tight around the controls, leather squeaking against the grips as his eyes dart across the star charts, and the display panel across the dash. He doesn’t have a direct course of action, instead turning his attention to the front shield as he tilts the gears forward. The engine’s hum bridles into a low wail, tapering off as the stars begin to blur past him with lightspeed.

He stares long enough at the cyclone of stars that he sees their glimmer in the reflection of his eyes against the viewport, haunted shadows circling around his brows and his cheeks, the scar carving across the front of his cheek and over his nose. It disappears down his jaw and throat, narrowing into nothing along his shoulder. Most days he can still feel the heat of the saber.

But he remembers, most, the lilac glow in her eyes.

Blinking, he looks down toward the dash, to the navigation chart and the controls, the blinking buttons and toggles as his fingers tighten again around the handles. The engine is barely purring, now, but he thinks of the Falcon, longing for its old, yet reliable warble.

For all the freedom it brings, flying is the hardest thing to do.

Something pulses, coming to life in his gut, and his hands draw close to his torso, pulling the ship from lightspeed as he circles between a few pieces of debris. Out in the distance, he sees the beginning of a small, moss colored planet, with heavy storm clouds dotting across its atmosphere. He breathes, smelling rainwater, the gentle rhythm of a heartbeat joining alongside his.

_There you are._

It takes time to land—navigating through inclement weather is tricky enough, but the foliage of the planet is a lot denser than he imagined. Heavy fog obscures what the rainfall doesn’t, and after two near misses with wide, bramble covered tree trunks, he decides to land in the first open patch he can find.

The air is, unsurprisingly, thick, humid and sticky from the moment the hatch to his ship opens, and he steps out into it. His boots squelch and sink into mud and moss, sweat forming on his brow before he can even walk ten paces.

_Why are you out here, of all places?_

There’s no answer, which would not normally be out of place. But her energy is so strong—stronger than he’s felt it since fighting by her side, Snoke’s throne room filling with smoke as they faced off against the Praetorian guards. There is no doubt in his mind that she is here, that she is close, though he has no real sense of bearing with the fog, and heavy rain filtering between tree branches.

His boots continue to sink through the muck, though occasionally he must watch his footing for fear of traipsing too heavily against knotted roots and gnarled vines. Some patches are so dense that he finds himself climbing, his leather gloves abandoned in favor of his natural grip. Slime and vegetation cover every inch, until he ducks under the bend in a tree’s roots, and he steps down into a small grove.

There are a few rocks scattered about, boulders tucked into the earthen walls that form more of a small cove. The deeper back, the lower the grade, until it sinks down into a subterranean cavern. The air isn’t quite so dense here, and the pulse of her signature is practically a drumbeat, rapid and precise.

Bracing a hand against the wall, he eases himself down into the cavern, the darkness engulfing what light and warmth there was on the surface. A shiver dances down his spine as his fingers brush over patches of dirt that feel slick, as though something had brushed against it and left a mark. There’s a sharpness to the air that smells so strongly of earth that he thinks he could spit out mud, and his boot hits something squishy.

And a lot of things happen at once.

Something snarls and hisses, before his foot gives out. Whatever he had touched had apparently braced him from a further fall, which he subsequently takes, landing hard against his thigh. He slides, then, deeper into the pit before colliding against swaddles of what feels suspiciously like reptilian skin shedding. The darkness is still heavy in his eyes, a rapid edge of a shadow being his only source of warning before something lashes out near him.

“Kriff—” he grunts, attempting to roll away, but instead he smacks directly into the fleshy, scale covered body of the creature, only just managing to right himself before it coils around his body. Gritting his teeth, his arms just manage to jab and prod free, his hands seeking purchase in the creature’s side.

It’s not a skill that he’s proud to know, but certain manipulations of the Force can be used against natural world creatures to dissuade them from their actions or habits. In times of critical need, where his saber isn’t the appropriate (or, in too many cases, accessible) option, he will lash out with the very essence that surrounds and sustains them.

His eyes close, fingers digging into the soft underbelly of the creature’s body as it curls around his torso, but before he can feel the flood and channeling of the Force, something presses to the forefront of his mind. As though, in a blink, the cavern becomes light, and he sees the pale cream and gold shimmer of the creature, with a dark brown pattern across the head and hood.

Withdrawing his hands, he flails in the dark, feeling his knuckles bounce off the wide neck, before a rounded nose presses to his palm.

“ _Rey_?!” He barks, his voice ringing off the walls, reverberating back in strangled echoes. “How did you—”

His words are lost, a crushing sense of dread, uncertainty. _You don’t know?_

The feeling dissipates immediately. No. No, it’s not that.

There’s a moment where the space flashes again, and he realizes that the images aren’t his perspective, but hers. Her own reflection in the water of a pond. A deep meditation gone wrong—an effort had been made to expand consciousness, to tune into the natural elements? _No, no._

He sees the Falcon, tucked into a drier grotto some distance away, Chewbacca pacing nervously, howling out on occasion, but staying put regardless. His heart twists, and he comes back to himself, his eyes blinking rapidly in the dark.

“You came to train… or look for something? You’re stuck like this?” He asks, skeptical of his own botched analysis, but there’s a resonating hum. He’s correct about something. “I… I have no idea how to get you out of this?”

He tastes the ash of disappointment in the back of his mouth.

“I’ve never turned myself into a giant _kriffing_ snake before, Rey,” he retaliates, huffing quietly. His hand is still braced against the wide front of her nose, the bow of her closed mouth resting against the butt of his palm. “But, I felt… composure. You were meditating.”

There’s another flourish of warmth. _Yes_.

“And you were focusing on…what?”

He waits, eyes wide as he stares up in her direction. A nudge touches his forehead, like fingertips brushing against his brow. The whispers he hears are faint, the words a little lost, but his uncle’s voice is indistinguishable. There are blossoms, and bones, chaotic tidal waves, and warm breaks of sunshine and prosperity. Life, and death. Balance.

All right. Balance with a _snake_?

He flinches, pain centering briefly in the center of his forehead, as though fingers just flicked him.

“Ow,” he sighs, his gaze narrowing before he closes his eyes again. She bristles around him, but relaxes, her nose resting against his hand.

Balance. Life, and death. A balance of… energy, of what it needed. Mutual understanding. Balance. Balance.

He opens an eye and feels the rush of air from her nostrils. A huff.

“Then _enlighten_ me, please,” he counters, his voice hard, before feeling a wave of frustration and something not unlike hysteria roll from her body to his. His throat closes, and his hand moves from her nose along the side of her face, down the side of her neck. “I’m sorry. You’re right, this… this is harder for you right now. Can I try again?”

A tremor vibrates between them, and his hand returns to the front of her snake-face.

He sees a moment through her eyes, watching her feet slide down the same path. There is an image of a tome in her mind. She’s come looking for it. Why, he isn’t sure—that isn’t clear. But there was a goal, here. She sought something in this cavern.

Her vision shifts, and he sees the snake coiled in the corner, gouged and suffering. She felt she could help it—she had been reading, learning of ways to use the Force. To share the energy of the natural world and essence around them, to incorporate her own—

“You were trying to help, and… helped too much.” He says, feeling her purr in response (at least, he thinks it’s a purr—do snakes purr?). Before he can dwell, the moment changes again, and he sees through her warped, reptilian vision her own human body, tucked into the moss nearby in a seemingly peaceful sleep.

His mouth sours a little, his chest turning a little cold as he looks up to her again. She didn’t _become_ this thing, she transferred herself into it.

He can hear the curl of Snoke’s wicked grin in the back of his mind. Her gaze is inquisitive, prodding between his eyes, before he withdraws.

“It’s not something I’m familiar with,” he sighs, eyes still adjusting to the dark. The slip of her smooth underbelly feels like bare skin, and he tries not to remember what her fingertips felt like against his. “But… I think I have an idea. But I need to be able to touch you.”

Her body coils tighter around him, squeezing his breath.

“Just _trust_ me,” he growls, huffing as she relaxes her grip. His boots just begun to scrape the cavern floor, and he wonders just how big she is in this body. “I just need your hand.”

There’s something in those words that curls funny in his core, and for a moment his vision changes, his nerves firing as he feels her perspective. They share in a single moment a soft, resonating hum between the tips of their fingers. But he can’t press too deeply before she hides behind her own impatience, her giant snake-self slithering across the floor, unbothered by the burden of holding onto him.

He’s still fumbling, but she manages to set him on a slick, cold stone floor. It takes barely a shift to find the cool, toned muscle of Rey’s upper thigh. At his back, he feels piercing eyes, no doubt willing themselves to be daggers. Even still, she purrs, settling in around him.

“I think you tried to help, and you put too much of yourself into the creature. I don’t know if your body has the snake in it, or what, but.. I have an idea.” He says, his hand gingerly shifting up her hip, until he feels the inside of her forearm. Tracing down, his fingertips find her palm, and his chest gets tight.

For _kriff’s_ sake, maybe he is weak.

But how can someone so strong and so radiant make him anything other than better, and brighter than what he was?

His fingers trace up along hers, his palm pressing against hers. Her skin is cool to the touch, no doubt from laying on the cave floor, but her heart beats steadily. Her chest rises and falls with a soft breath that just catches in her nose, a quiet snore puffing into the air every few moments. _Incredible…_

Something inside him blooms, like a single heartbeat. Gentle. _Ben_?

“Use me,” his voice cracks mid whisper, and he clears his throat. “Imagine you’re crossing a bridge from the creature to yourself. Use me as the bridge.”

If he channels his energy and concentration as a guide, then she can pass through him, and take herself to her body. And at least from there they can assess what became of her efforts for the creature, and what… all this means. 

Or she could get stuck in him. Or he could end up in the snake, and she could be in him...

Well, it sounded good in his head.

A wave of uncertainty leaves him dizzy, his stomach curling with nausea. The weight of her eyes returns to him, burning a hole into his temple. One palm rests against her smooth reptile skin, while his other takes hold of Rey’s hand, their fingers lacing.

“Go.” He says.

—

At first there’s nothing. His heart beats, he feels something shift and hum under her skin. But there’s no rush, there’s nothing that feels like a transference of energy or life. Nothing that he was ever taught, at any rate.

He opens his mouth to speak, and hesitates, breathless as something floods his senses. Overwhelming him is this wave of raw energy that sparkles like distant constellations, tumultuous storm clouds that are chaotic and beautiful. Everything within him, down to the fibers of his existence, feels electrified, exposed and flourishing with this unbridled rise of euphoria.

And then there are images, brief and fleeting, yet their stories burn themselves into his brain by her light. A lonely desert childhood, scavenging parts and scrap to survive, yet finding joy in a refurbished flight simulator. A simple thing, but it was freedom, it was enlightening. A young girl abandoned, waiting for her family to come back, but she never gave up believing she _would find them_.

Not even when she grew into adolescence, and her early adulthood, did she lose her childhood wish. And in that sweet, blooming flower is an ache of loneliness, of loss, of naivety regarding the shape and meaning of her body as it changed. 

He sees desert boys of varying races, faces and figures that briefly flourished something hot, but terrifying in her. He sees FN-2187, a thrum of softness and attraction—wanting a friend, someone to share something with. But unimposing, and platonic. The world was too unpredictable, then, and nothing has swayed her since.

And then he sees himself—a younger, less scarred version, anyway. The heat of her signature is centered in his chest, flooding him through his fingertips and toes, every inch of him glowing brighter than a star. But he sees his face from the first time he showed himself to her. The quiet confines of his chamber. She called him a monster.

Something twists in the left half of his body, burning of shame.

She had seen high cheekbones, a pronounced and mature nose, lips that she could only imagine would be desired by many, and dark, haunted, yet _yearning_ eyes. She saw something that defied her expectations, and what she wanted to believe was true. So desperately, she wanted him to be a monster, and he _wasn’t_.

He could try to hide the way his heart stutters when he sees, through her eyes, his own broad chest, his scarred face. But why hide what isn’t his—it was _her_ heart that stuttered. It was her face that flushed in response to him. His was already red from the prospect of their bond. He was embarrassed by being exposed. She was embarrassed being _caught_.

It changed, then. Whatever this is between them. For a moment in time he can feel every thread of her soul as it passes through his. There are too many words, too many feelings and memories, grievances and celebrations harrowing him from all sides to make much sense of any _one_ thing. Maybe a day where he will come where he can process it, but what lingers at the forefront is far more unsettling than any bout of rage or unfamiliar, primal sensations.

Her eyes, bearing down on him before she closed the hatch, are fixed on his broken, prideful face. She wanted to peel that away, to reveal the softer, tortured boy—the one who showed his face to no one else but her. She wanted that boy to come forward. She wanted—

 _Ben_.

She wanted those broad shoulders illuminated by the light of his room, those arms that could and _had_ enveloped her before. She wanted his hands, twice the size of her own, against her—her own hands, her waist, her thighs. _Kriff._ His shadow that once terrified her nightmares is now a warm _blanket_ in this brief moment. And even after the fight, the hurt, the door closing, and all these reasons why she _shouldn't_ want to, she still _dreams_ of him. She dreams of his voice, his nakedness, wondering what other scars there were, if the moles and birthmarks clustered in areas other than his cheeks and throat. Were other parts of him just as brusque and powerful? Would they fit against her— _inside_ her?

He gasps, as though his head is resurfacing from water. His chest is tight, burning between his lungs, and he can only equate its raw heat to the blade of a saber. But his fingers find his chest, and there is nothing to indicate a physical injury beyond the rapid beating of his heart, and the strain of his arousal beneath his trousers.

Beside him, Rey’s hand squeezes his, her body jerking and spasming as she comes to her senses, eyes flying wide open in the dark. Around them, he feels the snake body go slack, heavy and unmoving, but his attention is fixed on her, on drawing her upright, holding her against his body as she breathes. There are babbled, incoherent words and musings, but he holds her close, stroking her back, whispering quietly.

"Breathe, just breathe, I'm here—" his lips brush her ear as she trembles, clinging to him to steady herself. If not for their bond, he would only be able to guess the sensations themselves. But with it, he can _feel_ the raw, consuming rush of the Force flooding her nerves, her veins, her senses overwhelmed as she comes back into her own body. His own skin still tingles, but he manages to hold his own reactions aside for her.

"Rey—" he whispers, trying to get her attention. Her head tilts, lolling briefly against his shoulder, brushing his cheek as she lifts her gaze. 

Her nose brushes his jaw, their lips nearly meeting.

"Ben—" she replies, half-dazed, one hand still laced with his, the other coming to grasp his other arm, fingers fumbling against the thick coat. 

His heart forces itself to his tongue, and he leans forward, kissing her gently.

It's... He knows that he shouldn't have. He needed to ask, first, and for how intensely he feels the regret, he doesn't doubt for a moment that she feels it, too.

Warmth flickers, and blooms in his chest.

Before he can speak, or give proper voice to his thoughts, she's prying her hand away, shifting back until she's sitting against the wall, creating space between them as she examines herself further. Biting the inside of his cheek, he watches her carefully, keeping himself still and patient. 

“What was that—” she whispers after a moment, her voice somewhat strangled. He can feel that she isn't looking at him, his own cheeks flaming softly.

“Transferring essence… a power beyond even the most dedicated masters.” He tells her after a long moment, hyper-aware of the flush of his lips, and the sharpness in his throat. “It’s… it’s not a common Jedi trick.”

The words are careful, and even in the dark, he can see her outline go rigid, her signature skipping in hesitation. Not a common _Light_ side trick, he surely means. 

_Not necessarily._

“Be careful,” he whispers, biting back every word and urgency to reach out and take her hand, to hold her, to just— "Please."

He feels her eyes on his face, his lips warm as though touched by fingertips. 

“I will.”

She’s up and scaling her way out of the cavern, her careful footing far more talented than his will likely be when he ascends. His heart all but slams its way through his chest, her silhouette illuminated by the distant gleam of light, her clothes dirty and pale. Softer than the darker grey tones he once saw her in. Purer. His stomach twists.

Lowering his gaze back into the dark, he rests a hand against the body of the creature, and it is cold, and unresponsive.


End file.
